Monday, October 27, 2008

Chrysler, GM Cross Shopping

Edmunds has a fascinating analysis of how customers who shop for Chrysler products cross-shop other makes. Read the whole thing here. For example, customers who shopped for Chrysler Town & Country minivans also shopped for:

The conclusions that Edmunds draws from the analysis is that if GM bought Chrysler, they would want to kill off just about everything except for Jeep and the minivans, where they don't have as much presence. In segments where they do compete, such as mid-sized and compact cars, GM is a frequently cross-shopped brand. This means that if GM killed the Sebring, for example, it would expect to gain some of the volume for itself.

Nissan is one of the least cross-shopped brands with Chrysler. This implies that a Nissan/Chrysler merger would make more sense for Nissan, because they would pick up more products they don't compete directly against. With the caveat that many of these products aren't doing well. But it might be an opening for Nissan to redevelop Chrysler's cars based on Nissan designs, manufacture them cheaply in Chrysler's plants, and play harder against GM and Ford in the competition for the "domestic" car buyer.